Closed The Door On The Real Estate Issue

Everything has been resolved with the Real Estate finally.

We agreed to disagree and I’m paying the $297. It seems the cleaners I hired did a pretty ordinary job in terms of end of lease ‘standards’, and because the real estate waited so long to tell me about it (I had to submit the bond request you may recall or I still wouldn't have heard from them!) there was no way the company was coming back to fix anything.

So I was stuck between the two groups and copped the brunt of it financially from both of them. There’s no ruling against me so I’m not on a bad tenant list anywhere (nor should I be!), it’s all quite normal and not a bad revenue raiser I suspect.

I still got over $700 back from my bond money, so I’m writing the $297 off as experience and moving on from here. I like my new place so much better, so it’s a silver lining situation really.

I've also made sure to take photos of every single mark, ding and scrape in my new apartment to cover myself when I move out some time in the future.

I will also be a far more demanding tenant than I have been in the past, for my own sake. I've always let things slide, to not make waves with agents and owners, but not any more. I loathe real estate agents with a passion now. They’re sweetness and light getting you in, ignore you while you’re there, and then treat you like rubbish when you’re moving out.

So that money will be paying for the car service that I couldn't afford in January due to the repairs, and towards my registration and pink slip (which may involve two new front tyres) in May. It will be nice to be able to pay cash for all that lot this year!

One step forward two steps back, at least it’s two steps forward and one step back at the moment in my case, so forward movement overall!

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Ongoing Moving Issues

My old real estate agent is claiming $297 in cleaning costs, $132 for general cleaning and $165 for carpet cleaning. Quite reasonable, until you realised I’d paid an end of lease cleaners $345 to do those things the day I moved out!

I moved out on the 4th January remember, and this has only come up as I’d initiated getting my bond (secuiry deposit for the non Aussies) back 10 days ago as they’d done nothing about it.

So I’ve got the cleaner sending me a receipt (I didn’t get one at the time), and the old real estate sending me the end of lease inspection report outlining all their issues with the place so I can go from there.

One of his comments was interesting, he claims he couldn’t see the lines in the carpet from the carpet cleaner, but I saw the guy actually doing the carpets. So it’s the marks they look for, not that they’re actually cleaned?

It’s most likely going to mean I need to pay the old real estate the $297 so I can get my bond back, and then chase the cleaners for compensation or a refund. Seems I might have been better off not getting it cleaned at all and then just paying the agent to have it cleaned by his people. What a waste of money.

Something to note for future reference though, get the real estates preferred cleaner to do the work next time so they’ll be happy with the results.

So that’s money that won’t be going to pay down debt or fund my emergency account this month…

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I Found A New Home

picture courtesy icanhascheezburger.com

The real estate that I paid the deposit to on Saturday, called me this morning and the place is mine!

They've offered me a 13 month lease starting from the 28 December, which is just fantastic. The extra month is so it doesn't come up for renewal during the Christmas break, when all real estate agents shut up shop for 10 days here.

Knowing exactly what my rental expense will be for the rest of the year will really help with planning and budgeting, as it’s my largest expense after my combined debt payments. Not to mention it’s a load off my mind knowing I've got somewhere for all of 2008 sorted.

I’m really please that the owner was willing to start from the 28th, as it means I’m only paying double rent for one week, not two.

Let the decluttering and packing begin in earnest.

(In addition every single place I applied for over the weekend called me saying I was successful, 4 for 4 strike rate in this market is pretty impressive - go me!)

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Rental Applications Ahoy!

Things are progressing on the 'find a new apartment' search. I've found four nice (as in I'd be happy to live there) places this week and have submitted applications for all of them.

I just had a call from one of the agents of the places asking me to come in and pay a deposit today as they would like to pass on my application to the owner. Hurrah!

This one is the closest to work (easy walk), only 5 minutes walk from a major shopping centre with cinemas and supermarkets.

It's close (but not too close) to major arterial roads to get me where I need to go, not to mention the shopping centre is a major bus hub and there's a rail link currently underway into the area. That may be a bit of a giveaway as to its location for the Sydney readers, but what the hey.

Did I mention there's a hay-uge storage room in the back of the garage for my very own wine cellar. *lol*

It's also the cheapest rent of the four I've applied for so far, which could end up saving me a lot of money compared to the others over the next few years.

Fingers crossed.

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New First Home Owners' Policy

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) swept to power in the Federal election last night, and it will be interesting to see if their housing and broadband policies manifest. I have a particular interest in both (both personally, and one professionally). I’ll focus on the housing policy in this post though.

It seems that owning a home in Australia is becoming more an more difficult. According to the Bureau Of Statistics:

• The average home now costs seven times the average annual wage - up from four times the average annual wage just ten years ago;
• Nationally, first home buyers are now spending 31.7 per cent of their total income on mortgage repayments – up from 17.9 per cent in 1996;
• The proportion of homes being bought by first home owners declined from 21.8 percent in June 1996 to 17.1 percent today.

If you are buying your first home, you may be eligible for benefits under the First Home Owners Grant Scheme here in Australia. The Scheme was established to assist eligible first home buyers to purchase their first home by offering a $7000 grant.

The First Home Plus Scheme (which varies from state to state) also provides generous exemptions or concessions on transfer duty and mortgage duty for eligible first home buyers.

For example, if you buy a property valued up to $500,000 in NSW, 100% of the duty will be waived. If I was looking to buy a property with a purchase price of say $350,000, that’s a saving of $11,240 in duties.

Unfortunately these schemes have become been part of the reason housing prices have got so expensive, especially in major cities.

The ALP want to introduce an additional scheme called the First Home Saver Account.

Essentially, people will be allowed to make pre-tax contributions from their salary up to $50,000; which will be taxed at 15% and then invested in a superannuation style account. From what I've read on the flyer, couples will be allowed to combine their respective savings!

Deposits do have to be saved over a 4 year period (which may rule out some people, possibly even me), and of course while returns may be greater than an online savings account (plus the benefits of pretax investing); it is also possible returns could be lower too as with any investment.

I think this policy for first home owners is just stunning. It is such an incredible idea for promoting homeownership and getting people investing their money to benefit from management and compounding interest, without simply throwing money at people and artificially inflating home prices.

Anything to increase financial literacy in this country can only be a good thing. It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

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Ouch! Moving Is Expensive

I've been crunching my numbers for moving and I’m looking at approximately $3000 to relocate.

This breaks down to:

• 2 weeks rent in advance - $660 (assuming $330 per week rent)
• 4 weeks rent as bond - $1320
• Removalist costs - $500
• End of lease clean of old place - $300
• Bonds for electricity/gas - $100
• Post Redirection for 6 months - $35
• Boxes & tape - $100

Not to mention the hoops you have to jump through to rent a place these days. It’s been six years since I last went through this, and the world seems to have gone mad in the meantime.

I have to supply:

• Photo Identification - current drivers licence or passport
• Other Identification – Medicare card, debit card
• Proof Of Current Address - phone account, electricity/gas account, bank statement, mobile phone account etc.
• Proof Of Employment/Income - current payslip or a letter on company letterhead from your employer confirming employment and salary.
• Proof Of Regular Housing Payments - copy of rental ledger from your current agent
• References from your previous agents, and 2 personal references

The application form I printed out for one real estate to get a feel for things is no less than 8 pages long and asks all manner of questions. All of which you have to answer if you want to have your application considered, supplying all of this is no guarantee of securing the property.

I just need those references sorted out then I’ll be good to start applying this weekend if I find something. If they just need names and contact details though I’ll be fine.

I think buying a place would be easier than this, even more reason to get my finances sorted out so I never have to do this again!

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60 Days Notice To Vacate

Got home last night from a business trip to find the landlord has given me 60 days to vacate my unit. I need to be out by January 24, 2008. Great.

He advised he’s not willing to issue a new lease (I’d been on a month to month lease for 6 years), so the flat hunt begins. I was upset for a short while, but now I see it as an opportunity to move on to something new.

The downside is I’ll have to pay a lot more rent per week than I’m currently paying due to the Sydney rental market being what it is, and that’s going to put a bit of a dint in my debt repayment for the short term, not to mention the costs associated with moving. They are not abandoned of course; it’s just that till I’m set up in my new place the snowball amount will be diminished considerably.

Having done a quick search this morning, I’m looking at a rent increase of anywhere between $15 and $45 a week, depending on where I’m willing to relocate to.

I’m also so grateful that I have had a focus on eliminating debts over the last few months as I’m in a much better place to cover all the costs with cash over credit where possible. Had I done nothing, I wouldn't have even had any available credit, and it would have been a disaster!

Moving somewhere cheaper isn't really an option for me as any savings in rent would be eaten up in extra travel costs to work.

It’s also a little bit of a relief to know that I won’t need to spend another sweltering February in a west facing top floor unit with no air-conditioning!

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Real Estate Woes

Got home tonight to find a letter from my Real Estate agent.

They're putting the rent up $10 a week from the 24th of November. That's the second rise this year (the last one was in May 2007, which was $20 a week), for a total increase of $30 a week over the last six months. My rent will have increased $130 a month in just under a year, but I'm still in the same apartment, go figure.

So I guess I will make a list of the all the things wrong with the apartment and hope they fix as much as possible for that extra $30 a week they're getting from me.

I'm genuinely shocked I have to say. This place isn't even close to posh, in fact it's quite dodgy. That's the Sydney rental market for you though.